Breeding baby brine shrimp

[Deeznuts]

Hi people, I'm contemplating about using a spare tank that I have to breed brine shrimp to feed my tropical fish.

I'm based in the U.K.

I know that you can use cone shaped bottles but I'm not sure if that would be suitable for long term breeding.

My question is, would it be cost worthy to do so? Or, is it cheaper to buy them form the fish shops when they have them in stock. Usually a pond a small pouch.

If it is a good idea to breed my own. How would I approach this? I have no idea about saltwater marine live other than names of habitants.

Thanks in advance

 

[Mikeyboy123]

Hi. I don’t know much about raising brine shrimp beyond the baby stage but I have an alternative suggestion for you. How about raising a community of small inverts in a spare tank? Scuds, daphnia, seed shrimp, copepods.
Don’t know a great deal about this either mind, but it would take salt out of the equation and I think there may be one or two posters on here that do it.

 

[Deeznuts]

Hi. I don’t know much about raising brine shrimp beyond the baby stage but I have an alternative suggestion for you. How about raising a community of small inverts in a spare tank? Scuds, daphnia, seed shrimp, copepods.
Don’t know a great deal about this either mind, but it would take salt out of the equation and I think there may be one or two posters on here that do it.

Whatever is the simplest to do, I’ll do. Especially, if it means I don’t have to mess around with salt water. Although, aren’t copepods saltwater and harmful to fish?

 

[Colin_T]

If you want to raise brineshrimp to adulthood, you need a container of green seawater with a heater and an airline bubbling away to keep the oxygen levels up and to circulate the water. The brineshrimp eat the algae and over a month they grow into adults and you can feed them to the fish. However, it's not as easy as it sounds because cultures crash and you lose them. Most people feed newly hatched brineshrimp that they hatch at home from dry eggs. And if they want slightly bigger foods they grow stuff (as Mikeyboy123 suggested) like Daphnia, rotifers, copepods (cyclops) and various worms. You can also feed frozen prawn, fish and squid to your fish. Just cut them into little bits and offer a few pieces at a time. Let the fish eat as much as they want and then stop feeding and remove uneaten food.

The following link has information about culturing live foods for fish.

Back to Basics when Breeding Fish

STARTING OUT Make sure you have a pair, (1 male + 1 female). There is nothing worse than spending your hard-earned dollars buying a couple of fish to try and breed and ending up with a pair of fish of the same sex. Let's face it, to reproduce fish you need a male and a female. Two males won't do...

www.fishforums.net

 

[Deeznuts]

If you want to raise brineshrimp to adulthood, you need a container of green seawater with a heater and an airline bubbling away to keep the oxygen levels up and to circulate the water. The brineshrimp eat the algae and over a month they grow into adults and you can feed them to the fish. However, it's not as easy as it sounds because cultures crash and you lose them. Most people feed newly hatched brineshrimp that they hatch at home from dry eggs. And if they want slightly bigger foods they grow stuff (as Mikeyboy123 suggested) like Daphnia, rotifers, copepods (cyclops) and various worms. You can also feed frozen prawn, fish and squid to your fish. Just cut them into little bits and offer a few pieces at a time. Let the fish eat as much as they the want and then stop feeding and remove uneaten food.

The following link has information about culturing live foods for fish.

Back to Basics when Breeding Fish

STARTING OUT Make sure you have a pair, (1 male + 1 female). There is nothing worse than spending your hard-earned dollars buying a couple of fish to try and breed and ending up with a pair of fish of the same sex. Let's face it, to reproduce fish you need a male and a female. Two males won't do...

www.fishforums.net

I’ve had a brief read. So, to see if I understand well enough.

To grow rotifier, I could leave some tap water outside in a bottle to become green and then put that water in a tank that has a small bubbly filter.

1. Could I use a pre-installed internal filter if I cover the holes with a fine mesh?

2. Do I have to buy live rotifer to start the colony or can I start with eggs? I'm not sure what's easier to get ahold of here in the UK.

Do I need the light on for this?

Also, could I grow these with daphnia? Not sure how I would collect from a pond though lol.

 

[Mikeyboy123]

Rotifers are really just for tiny fry. Is that what you need?

 

[Deeznuts]

I see. No, I want something for adult fish. What do you recommend?

As of this moment, I’ve been using mosquito larvae from the water garden but winter will be here soon. It’s why I thought about brine shrimp.

 

[Mikeyboy123]

Rotifers are no good for adult fish.

As I keep tiny fish, the only live foods they get are baby brine shrimp and microworms, both pretty easy to culture on a small scale.

If you need something bigger then I don't know much about that I am afraid, but I do know that people culture things like grindal worms, daphnia, scuds, seed shrimp, so maybe others can help with that.

 

[Colin_T]

You need a decent size container of green water to keep live food cultures. The smallest containers I used were 40 litres and most were over 100 litres. The containers are outside in the sun and are filled with dechlorinated water. You add some fertiliser and aerate the water and let it turn into green soup. The green is single celled algae growing due to light and nutrients in water. When it is green you add some rotifer or Daphnia cysts (eggs) and they hatch in a day or so and start to grow. You leave it for a month and then start harvesting. You use a fine mesh net to scoop some out and add them to your aquariums.

Rotifers are available in salt and fresh water varieties and come in a range of sizes from 5-20 micron (tiny and suitable for newly hatched fish fry) to 1/2 inch long. They all get cultured the same way.

You don't want a filter in the culture containers, just an airline bubbling. If you have a filter, even with a fine screen on it, you will filter out the algae and some of the nutrients used to grow the algae.

The culture containers need a lot of light to keep the algae alive. That is why you normally keep them outside. If it's cold then have the cultures inside under a decent spotlight or aquarium light. Have the light on for 16 hours a day to keep the water green.

To collect Daphnia, you get a 12 inch white fish net. The white nets from pet shops are fine mesh and will catch baby and adult Daphnia. You find a pond that has Daphnia in and get a bucket of water from there, then put the net in the water and move it in a figure 8 pattern. Do this a few times then lift it up and see if there is orange stuff in it. If there is, they are the Daphnia and you put them in the bucket of water. However, if you want a clean source of Daphnia, look online for live Daphnia or Daphnia eggs online and get some from a lab. Then you just add them to a container of green water and wait a month to start harvesting.

 

[Uberhoust]

I had a lot of success hatching brine shrimp but no success raising them up. Will watch here for more info.

 

[kpewv]

raising brine shrimp beyond the baby phase is hard from what ive discerned, but breeding and raising the babies is very cheap if you need consistent smaller food. (ie my sister did it regularly as a 12 year old to feed her betta fry lol). if you have a VERY well stocked tank ive had quite a bit of success just cultivating scud in the main tank. keep in mind they will take over without ample predators though. if you have a spare tank youre not using i would still suggest a scud colony!